


Ten of Wands

by aurelacs



Category: Prospect (2018)
Genre: F/M, Oral Sex, Praise Kink if you squint, Slow Burn, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, mentions of abuse, mentions of animal death, partners out of necessity to lovers, red dead redemption au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:21:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24031936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurelacs/pseuds/aurelacs
Summary: After killing her husband, Annie Gray finds herself on the run, struggling to avoid the law and support herself, when she encounters an outlaw named Ezra who’s willing to help.
Relationships: Ezra (Prospect) x Fem!OC
Comments: 6
Kudos: 9





	1. Temperance

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!! I'm really excited to post this! It's been stewing in my brain for a little bit. This fic is an RDR AU in the loosest sense possible. I'm using it for setting and time period (1899). There's no spoilers for either game. I'm not sure if I'll be able to update consistently, but I have it planned out, which is half the battle.

In terms of nightmares, it wasn’t the worst Annie’s had: screaming for her life as she frantically stumbled through her minuscule cottage, trying to avoid her husband and his wrath. He was holding a knife, always the one he used to break down deer, a gift from his father. He was always walking so slowly that if she wasn’t stuck in her mind, she would have no trouble running out the door and far away from him. She always walked slower, stuck in an invisible molasses as her husband encroached, ever closer. The doors were locked, the furniture sturdily held in place, so she couldn’t move anything to block his path. On bad nights, he reached her; the engraved handle of his butcher knife glinting in the afternoon sunlight before coming down and waking her. Good nights, like tonight, were the ones where she managed to wake up before he caught her, or somehow opened the door and ran, far, far away, leaving her husband in the dust. 

Neither of them were reflections of what actually happened. 

Her husband did chase Annie around the house with his favorite knife. He had called her a ‘wasteful wretch’ for using up his last hunt too quickly. He had hurt her before, threatened her, but never like this. Unlike her dreams, however, their cottage actually had a small set of stairs that led to their bedroom, where she grabbed the shotgun he kept under the bed, and fired. Annie’s dreams never made her rewatch her husband’s lifeless body crumble down the stairs. She knew, somewhere, deep in the back of her mind, that the law wouldn’t look favorably upon her; would take no sympathy in her story or her situation, and would gladly see her hang. So she ran. 

For three months, Annie wasn’t sure if she was even wanted. She and her husband lived far enough from the nearest town that if neither of them weren’t seen for a couple weeks, it wasn’t out of place. She indulged in the delusion that maybe his body would never be found. No one would miss him. When she left their cottage, she cut her hair and wore her husband's clothes in an attempt to disguise herself. She didn’t call herself Annie. If people asked, she had never been married, had no suitors of which to speak. Annie figured she could lay low for a couple more months before trying to return to some sort of normalcy. In the local saloon, she had overheard a couple people talking about a ranch outside of Armadillo that was always hiring. It seemed like a promising lead but a stagecoach was too expensive, and the trains were notorious for keeping the law on board in case of outlaws. 

Initially, she thought she was safe in Valentine. It was a decent sized town that took a couple days from her home to reach, far enough that Annie thought she could safely let the mental pictures of her husband and home bleed away. The people were quiet and mostly kept to themselves. No one seemed to blink an eye when she attempted to interject herself into the day to day. Annie would ask around for small jobs, taking what she could when she could. She did her best to keep her head down. It wasn’t until one day, as she was passing by the sheriff’s office, that she saw the notice board. Annie’s blood ran cold as her eyes frantically scanned the ‘wanted’ poster bearing her likeness. 

_ WANTED _

_ ANNIE GRAY N _ _ ÉE _ _ COBB  _

_ BOUNTY : $50 _

_ FOR: MURDER AND EVADING THE LAW _

_ CONSIDERED ARMED AND DANGEROUS _

_ WANTED ALIVE FOR QUESTIONING _

The site of the poster overwhelmed her with nausea to the point where she sincerely thought she would throw up in front of the sheriff. Annie chose to bury her grief and guilt, to let it fester in her stomach until it eventually ate her from the inside and left her for dead. It’s how she wanted it. Seeing the wanted poster forced the images of her husband at the bottom of the stairs back into the forefront of her mind. She knew she killed her husband. She knew this was what she deserved, and yet she didn’t want to confront it. The months she had spent in Valentine, she played the part she wanted to have. Not the one of the self-inflicted widow, but of the resilient wife who couldn’t take her husband’s abuse any longer. Annie liked to pretend that her husband was still alive. A defense mechanism to keep the bile at bay. She loved her husband. Loved him when he first courted her, loved him when they got married, loved him when he told her she couldn’t write to her mother anymore and beat her when he found out. When he spat out her cooking. When she couldn’t bear him children. When his face twisted itself in hatred as she greeted him after a day of hunting. Loved him so much that when she fired the shotgun into his chest and killed him she couldn’t find it within herself to scream. 

Annie could feel the sweat beading on her forehead. She searched frantically, made sure no one was watching as she ripped the poster off the notice board and stuffed it into her satchel. Hopefully it hadn’t been up for long and if anyone realized the poster was missing, they would assume a bounty hunter had accepted the task. The situation sent Annie so off-kilter that she opted not to find work for the day, and instead made the trek directly back to her camp. She slept, the stress somehow managing to quiet her racing mind. She dreamt not of her husband or their home, but of a stagecoach passing through a dusty town full of tumbleweeds that smelled of horse manure. Her coach passed by a sign that read “Welcome to Armadillo.” Annie took it as fate. She would find her respite two states away no matter the cost. The sooner she left, the harder it would be for bounty hunters to track her, and the faster she would be able to raise the money to pay it off. 

The morning sun warmed Annie’s face as she rose the next day. She stamped out her fire and packed up her tent, wrapping it into her bedroll and strapping it onto her back. Her husband’s shotgun slung comfortably over her shoulder. She had settled on her plan while she slept, not just to go to Armadillo, but how to afford it as well. The intent, as foolish as it was, was to rob Valentine’s general store of money and provisions, and perhaps a horse from the stable across the way. She felt herself somewhat justified with the act. Annie wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t necessary. It’s not like she would be hurting the shopkeeper, just scaring him into giving her the money. In the back of her mind she even managed to convince herself that she would find a way to bring back the horse. 

Annie’s camp was an hour walk outside of Valentine, and with every step she took closer to the sleepy town, she felt her confidence wane. Her mind raced with every way her plan could go wrong. The law would be alerted, and they would laugh at her before dragging her into the sheriff’s office. They would mock how her bounty poster claimed she was dangerous. Maybe they would release her with the thought that there was no way this was the same woman.  _ Who could kill a man but not rob a store? _ If that did happen, she resolved that she would neither kick, nor scream, nor demand penance. The guilt still weighed heavy on her shoulders. She knew she deserved a noose, but was afraid to face it. But if she was caught, who was she to deny fate?

Valentine appeared suddenly, expanding over the horizon like a threat. Doubt creeped in further. She could turn back. Perhaps Armadillo was closer than she thought, and the stagecoach was a luxury meant for the rich and the lazy. She could just steal the horse. The stable was the first thing she passed as she walked into town, it was easy enough. Her legs continued to carry her. Annie kept the shotgun slung over her shoulder as she walked toward the store, greeting those who walked by her. No one seemed suspicious of her as she continued to tread, her paces slowing as she finally approached the old wooden steps that lead to her goal. In the morning light, they still managed to appear a dark, foreboding mountain that she had to climb. They creaked as she walked up until she was flush with the door. It was metal, painted white, with a screen to keep errant bugs from flying in and ruining the fresh produce that was sold inside. Annie prayed that it was locked, or that the store was closed for the day, but as she focused in, she could faintly hear talking from behind the door. She recognized the shopkeeper’s voice.

Annie took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and kicked open the entrance to the general store, her husband’s shotgun aimed toward where she thought the shopkeeper might be. When she opened her eyes, she was greeted by the elderly shopkeeper’s horrified face: a ghostly white that made her fear that he was about to faint. To his left was another gentleman, his face a combination of annoyed and... amused? His left arm was resting on the counter. In his hand was a pistol that gleamed in the sunlight that shone through the shop’s window, and Annie could just see the delicate engravings in the barrel. The man seemed out of place for Valentine, doubly so for an outlaw. 

Her first thought was that he looked nothing like her husband. 

He stood nearly at her husband’s height, but he stood up straight, like he had less burden to carry. He was well groomed, too. His beard was closely trimmed, enough to keep the definition of his jaw intact and still slightly mask the two small patches on either side of his chin. The hair poking out from under his derby hat looked a little wiley, and Annie could see a small tuft of blonde sticking out from under the brim. There was a youthful look in his eyes that betrayed the wrinkles on his forehead and the ones by his eyes. His clothes looked fresh as well, save for the mud that caked his shoes and the hem of his pants, a rarity in a ranch town like Valentine. Even more perplexing was the faint scar that traced over the cushion of his cheek. The man’s accent was distinctly Southern.

“I do believe you are interrupting my robbery.” 

His voice interrupted her thoughts. It felt like the first time Annie had looked upon a man since she married her husband. He felt like an outsider to her, despite being an outsider herself. All the while the shopkeeper still managed to stand, hands still in the air, eyes back to focusing on the man’s intricate pistol. Once the gravity of what was in front of her sunk in, Annie panicked. He was the last thing that stood between her and Armadillo. Every extra second she wasted in the store without the money in her hand was a second the law could use to catch up to her. To find her. To kill her. If the law was going to catch her, she didn’t want a robbery charge on her as well. Annie mustered up more courage, more voice, than she had had in months.

“No. I think you’re interrupting mine.”

The man seemed stunned, but the look of amusion still sat on his face, almost like he enjoyed the situation. This was a funny joke someone was telling at the saloon across the street, not a real life occurrence. Or perhaps that’s how those kinds of jokes came to life. The man tucked his pistol into its holster and bowed, his arms held out wide and gesturing to the shopkeeper. Annie swallowed, hard. The barrel of the shotgun trembled with her as she slowly crept closer to the old man. She wasn’t sure who was shaking harder. 

“I-I need the money.” 

His trembling hands impeded the speed at which the shopkeeper could open up his small, black till. He almost dropped some of the bills as he handed them to Annie, who stuffed them into her satchel, shotgun still poised at his chest. The amount didn’t seem like much, but by Annie’s estimation it felt like enough to get her a stagecoach to Strawberry. Her heart seized in her chest. It wasn’t that great of a distance between her and her home, but it was a start. And Strawberry had a small hotel with baths and rooms. When she believed the ordeal to be over, she lowered her weapon, forgetting about the man that almost beat her to her ticket out, until she heard the  _ click _ of a pistol being cocked. 

“Now, now, little bird. Do you or do you not agree that I am entitled to some of your newfound,  _ bounteous _ wealth.” Annie found herself staring down the barrel of his gun. He still had the same smirk on his face.  _ No, no, no _ . This man had been a thorn in her side for longer than she had the patience. Maybe it would be easier to die here. Maybe it would be easier to kill, now that she’s had the experience. Before Annie could raise her gun, she saw the man’s eyes flick to an area behind the shopkeeper. She could make out what looked like a back closet with a door.

“It seems as though we are at an impasse. Perhaps we could discuss this stalemate elsewhere, away from prying eyes.”

She got the hint. The man stepped to the side to let Annie pass behind the counter. She could still feel his gun trained on her as she walked toward the area. The shopkeeper followed the two with his eyes as Annie opened the door. It led outside and the man slammed it shut behind him. 

“If you want to make it out of this town all creamy, I suggest you follow my lead.”

The man took one of Annie’s arms and pinned it behind her back. With his other hand, he pressed his pistol into the middle of back and pushed her forward.

“I am not going to shoot you, that I can promise. Act natural.”

They walked in tandem through the back throughway of the shops. Nearby, Annie heard what she assumed was the shopkeeper scream. A shrill whistle sounded in the distance, and the man picked up his pace, urging her forward as well. To passersby, they looked like a couple walking unreasonably close to each other. Annie spotted a horse hitched on a post next to the auction yard that she assumed was the man’s. She figured he would kill her there and take the money when the rumbling of hoofbeats interrupted her thoughts. 

“Stop right there.” A posse of five men formed a semi-circle in front of them. Each one had a repeater trained in their direction. The fear that built up in Annie was enough to make her scream, but the feeling of the man pressing the gun to her head silenced her. “You’ve been accused of robbery. If you surrender now, we won’t shoot.” 

The silence rippled through the grass. Annie was ready to surrender now, to submit to the pain she earned. The tension flooded her veins and she wanted to break from his grasp. She had no reason to trust his word, but no reason to not trust him, either. 

“Gentlemen, let’s be reasonable. There is no reason as to why you would put an innocent, young woman at risk.” The barrel felt cold against the heated skin of her temple. “If you let me leave, I swear you will never see my face again in Valentine, and the lady will be brought back with nary a scratch.” He pointed the pistol at the group of men. “However if I leave, and I sense that one of you is following me, I will ensure that Hell rains upon this little shitheap of a town, and she will be the first to go.”

Annie could feel his heart race against her back. It betrayed the confidence that his voice exuded. His breaths, when not speaking, were shaky. When the posse did nothing but stare silently at him, he began to gently pull against Annie and walked backwards. He kept his eyes trained on the men until he realized he had backed into his horse. Slowly, he let go of her arm. 

“Get on, on the front,” he mumbled, outstretching his newly freed hand to assist her up. Annie scooched forward on the saddle to make room. She watched as he unhitched the horse and hopped on behind her. “I have camp set up by the falls,” he whispered in her ear. “We’ll ride and discuss our little predicament there.” He set his horse into motion, still checking on the posse behind him. To her surprise, they weren’t following them. 

“They will most likely wait for a spell before tracking us, but we’ll be long gone before they are able to find where I set up,” he said, as if reading her mind. 

The man, who introduced himself as Ezra, had his camp set up by Cumberland Falls, along the Dakota River. By the looks of it, he was in the same situation as Annie. The camp looked lived in. The grass around the fire pit was colorless from the smoke. His bedroll was adjusted in an odd position in his tent that was most likely meant to keep the rising sun out of his eyes. He had even set up a small post to hitch his horse. Ezra insisted on getting off the horse first, and helping Annie off by outstretching his hand once more. He waited until she had sat herself on her own bedroll before speaking. 

"Now, little bird, do you mind telling me how you interrupted  _ my _ robbery back there?” There was no anger in his voice, but the annoyance permeated throughout.

Annie remained silent. She picked at her ragged cuticles and clutched her satchel closer to her chest.

“I do not like to be made a fool.” Her silence vexed him. He crouched down next to her, close enough that when she looked over at him, she could count the moles that freckled his neck and chest. “And I need that money.” That struck a chord in her.

“I need it more.”

He made a face, the corners of his lips pulling down and his eyebrows rising. “That is. A fair assumption. However, I spent weeks planning that robbery, so I do believe I am entitled to my due share. Half, at least. I will not accept a penny less.” 

Annie reached into her satchel and counted the bills.  _ Fourteen dollars _ . It felt like so much and so little at the same time. Fourteen was more than enough to get her to Strawberry, maybe even Blackwater with some persuasion. Seven would get her to Strawberry, but immediately leave her in the same position she’s in now, possibly even worse off if the shopkeeper told the law that it was in fact she that robbed him. 

“Maybe we can come to a compromise.” 

Ezra scoffed. “I don’t think you’re in the position to be negotiating-”

“Without me, those men would’ve shot you dead.” 

“And without me, you would have left that store with your tail between your legs and not a cent to your name. The last thing I expected to see in all of New Hanover is a woman trying to be an outlaw. Do you mind telling me what had you so inclined to ruin all of my hard work?”

Annie hesitated. What could she get away with telling him? If Ezra needed the money as much as she did, telling him about her husband would lead to him turning her in for her bounty. Fifty dollars was a lot of money for anyone, even for outlaws who were so meticulous as to spend weeks planning a robbery. She thought about lying, telling Ezra that she was on the run from her husband, banking on whatever sympathy he might have.

“I need to get to Armadillo.” 

Ezra burst into a fit of laughter that knocked him back into the grass. It was the only sound the river carried through the air around them. As he continued to laugh, Annie grew more cautious. The thoughts of all the times her husband acted the same way before exploding on her ran through her mind, and she began to crawl backwards away from him. His horse was too far to reach without him catching her. She could run right now and keep the money.

“Where are you going, birdie? I am merely laughing at the serendipity of our shared quandary.” He stood up and brushed the grass off the seat of his pants. “I, too, have dealings in Armadillo that need to be tended. It is why I found myself in Valentine in the first place. Admittedly, I have many dealings in many places, but if you need to get to Armadillo, I can oblige. That is, if you would allow me.” 

Annie honestly, truly, couldn’t believe her luck. She was flummoxed at the prospect of a man so easily and willingly wanting to help her. There was a worry, in the back of her mind, that he might eventually exploit this. But for now, she let the concern pass. Armadillo, for the first time, seemed within reach. 

They shook hands, and silently agreed on a deal.


	2. The Tower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ezra and Annie start their journey to Armadillo by first stopping in Strawberry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realized I never added the tumblr link in case you prefer to read on there!   
> https://aurelacs.tumblr.com/post/617374803043794944/

Ezra was intolerable. 

His proclivity for talking mindlessly grated against Annie’s ears, who had grown so used to her mostly wordless self and husband. Even before she married, she was never one to speak much. Their first afternoon and night together was spent listening to him speak cryptically about the so-called “dealings” he had in the towns on the way to Armadillo. He spoke in code about certain men he needed to speak with, small jobs, some of which he called “ harmless errands,” as if that had any meaning to her. She couldn’t figure out when he took the chance to breathe. What all made it worse was Ezra’s incessant need to pry. Even though she did her best to pay attention, he still broke through. Her name, her life, what she was doing in Valentine, did she live in Valentine, how it was strange to meet a woman who was unmarried. Every question stung, dug a little deeper, until it felt like a hole torn in her sternum. For the time being, her one worded answers sufficed, but she could tell he was getting antsy. 

The one dealing he was upfront with was an apparent debt collection he had in Blackwater. It felt nearly unacceptable to Annie. Blackwater wasn’t too far off course, but it was enough that it made her worry about bounty hunters catching either of their scents. Ezra assured her they wouldn’t be there long, but for Annie it felt as empty as every other word he had said since they reached the camp. 

Annie hoped to find respite from Ezra as they settled in for the night, only to be greeted by the fact that he even spoke in his sleep. Nowhere near the winded soliloquies like when he was awake, but enough that it kept her awake well into the evening. There would be periods of silence long enough where she believed herself to be safe, and he would start up again. His words were never coherent; mindless babbles that effortlessly escaped through his pursed lips and furrowed brow. The light from the fire reflected against the curious patch of blonde hair that sat above his right temple. It wasn’t until what felt like hours after Ezra had first settled in for the night that Annie’s eyes grew too heavy to keep open, and she fell asleep. 

Ezra wasn’t at camp when Annie woke up the next morning. She half expected all of his belongings to have disappeared with him, but when she rose to check, she saw his bedroll still laid out under his tent. She splashed some cool water from the river on her face to wake her up further before reigniting the fire that went out during the night. 

“It is always nice to be in the company of another early-riser like myself.” Ezra’s voice was accompanied by the sound of gentle hoof steps as he led his horse closer to the camp. Two rabbit carcasses hung from the back of his saddle. His plan for the day, he said while unhooking the rabbits and beginning to cook them over the fire, was to head to Strawberry to take care of his first “errand.” The town was a couple hours west in the right direction. Annie didn’t feel the need to state her objections just yet. Ezra, for the time being, was the rope that could pull her out of the mire. With as deep as she found herself, she had little other choice. He pulled Annie out of her thoughts and urged her to eat, eager to make their way. He spoke fondly of Strawberry as he ate, like heaven and earth moved to accommodate the river town. He told her she wouldn’t believe how  _ clean _ it was compared to Valentine. 

“When the sun reaches its peak, it reflects upon the river like a luminous sapphire. It makes the entire town shine a blue the likes of which you have never seen, I assure you.” Ezra refused to stop speaking about it even as they packed up and began their journey. Annie quickly tuned him out. This was the furthest west she had ever been, even if the scenery had barely changed. The greenery felt more lush, the dirt of the road seemed to sink under the horse’s hooves differently. She wanted to take everything in as the threat of never seeing it again loomed over her. The thought gripped at her chest, ate at her to the point where she wanted to scream as though it was the only way to release the building energy. 

It was hard to balance herself on the back of Ezra’s horse without touching him in some way. It felt inappropriate to grip her arms around his waist as the Belgian Draft wobbled along the worn path, but not holding on at all threatened to see her fall off entirely. Her cheeks warmed unpleasantly at the thought of putting her hands on another man while she was married, even if it was solely for practical reasons. Even if she was no longer married. Annie let out a beleaguered sigh and wrapped her arms around Ezra, minding to keep as much of her body away from his. If he noticed her awkward position, or that she was holding on in the first place, he didn’t remark on it. 

“So, little bird, why do you need to get to Armadillo?”

Annie hesitantly remained silent. The question sent a small pang of fear down her spine, further adding to the tightness in her chest. Her bounty poster still sat folded and tucked into the satchel that hung across her body. Had he looked while she slept? She had given him so little the day prior that perhaps he felt the need to check for himself, and asking her now was just a test of how honest she would be for the rest of their time together. 

“I heard there was a ranch nearby there that was hiring.” 

Ezra turned his head to look at her and smiled affirmatively. “I do not know where the MacFarlanes find enough money to maintain their operation but there they are. The ranch is like a town within itself. I’m sure they’ll have something for you.” He paused for a moment. “If not, there are always plenty of general stores to rob.” Annie could feel his back shake as he chuckled at his own joke. She had the urge to smack him, not hard enough to hurt, but enough to knock the derby hat off his head and into the mud below them. 

“As I mentioned earlier, we are stopping in Strawberry because of a small enterprise I have that involves the post officers of this fine country. After I speak with him, we can be on our way to Blackwater.” 

“I don’t see why we need to stop in Blackwater. It’s out of the way and I don’t want to give the b-... posse from Valentine more time to find us.” 

“We have already crossed into West Elizabeth, the meager posse of a shithole of a town is not going to bother crossing state lines to look for a man that robbed a shopkeep of fourteen dollars. Unless it’s not just the posse about which we have reason to be concerned,” he laughed. Annie stayed silent.

Ezra pulled the reins on his horse to signal it to stop. Dread flooded Annie’s body once more. It wasn’t the volume at which Ezra held his voice, but his tone. It paralyzed her to the point where he had to pry Annie’s arms off of his waist to hop off and look up at her as she sat, frozen. The tone meant hurt. It meant anguish and run and cower. But nothing of that nature followed the tone as he paced silently back and forth a couple steps away, his hands resting on his waist. 

“Little bird, I have been more than forthcoming with my information and backstory and I do not find it to be fair that you have since chosen to give me absolutely nothing.” 

“Stop calling me little bird.” It was all she could muster. 

Ezra’s voice softened as he approached. His question was hushed, like he didn’t want his horse to hear, like speaking it any louder would cause the truth he didn’t want to acknowledge emerge out of her so harshly that she would break. “Do we need to be concerned about more than a posse?” 

“ _ No _ .” Annie’s voice shook as the word fell from her throat. She didn’t know why he insisted on pressing the matter when they both made it clear that they didn’t want to accept whatever truth Annie was hiding, though hers was far deeper than she knew Ezra could anticipate. 

“I am not getting back on that horse until you tell me what the hell is going on.” 

Annie was on the verge of tears as she reached into her satchel to pull out her bounty poster, still undisturbed. She handed it to Ezra and refused to make eye contact as he scanned over it. She focused above his eyes: his eyebrows, his forehead, the blonde patch that continued to poke out beneath the brim of his hat. His laughter rang through her ears.

“Do you really expect me to believe that you are a murderer?” 

Annie looked at him sheepishly. If only she were able to project the image of her husband into Ezra’s mind. Blood pooling, chest open, dozens of pellets boring small holes into the wall and stairs. Would he be able to feel her fear? Tears did pour as the horrid sight refused to leave her mind despite how hard she pushed it. She jumped when Ezra reached out to gingerly touch her leg in comfort. 

“Would you like to get down?”

“No. Can we please just keep going?” 

He nodded his head silently and hopped back on. Ezra was quiet the rest of the ride, and Annie didn’t want to admit how much, in that moment, she needed his speech. 

*

Strawberry didn’t quite live up to Ezra’s proclamations, but Annie couldn’t deny that it was pretty. And it certainly was nicer than Valentine. The town was built around the river, framed with elevated water flumes that ran from the mine above it. Each building was made from the same dark wood, giving it a sense of uniformity and quaintness that Valentine lacked with its painted siding. The roads were still dirt but miraculously weren’t muddy. Some spots even had flowers growing along the banks. Ezra hitched his horse on a post outside of a depot. 

“I need to stop in here for a minute. If you’d like, up this road is the hotel. You do not seem up for much more traveling today.”

As much as she didn’t want to admit it, Ezra was right. It was hard to allow the thought that he could possibly read her, even as well as her husband. Annie had overheard people in Valentine speak about the hotel. The mayor apparently wanted Strawberry to become a tourist destination for visitors of West Elizabeth and spared no expense for the hotel and town surrounding. As Ezra disappeared into the depot, Annie made her way up the incline. Her feet itched to make their way to the sheriff’s office to see if her poster was hung here as well, but resisted the urge. The act begged attention, and it’s possible this sheriff kept his notice board inside the office, which beckoned its own set of problems. 

The best word Annie could muster for Strawberry’s hotel was ‘cozy.’ It was dimly lit with oil lanterns and from the light outside that filtered in through the windows. A gentleman stood by the front desk in a full suit, hands clasped behind his back. He greeted her with a “madame” as she walked in. The action nearly floored her. The man gestured over to a small board that listed the services the hotel offered and the prices: bed and bath, both a dollar each. Annie paused. It seemed foolish, overindulgent, to spend money on a bath, but her bones ached something unknown deep into the marrow that acted as a lure to drag Annie’s hand into her satchel, and dig out two dollars. 

The bath room was upstairs on the right side of a landing, directly next to one of the two bedrooms the hotel housed. Steam had already begun to gather on the windows from the copper tub situated directly in the middle of the room. It also held a small cabinet with fresh towels, and a small table littered with tinctures and labeled vials. Annie stared at them all, taken aback by the sheer amount of oils they had, some of which she had never heard of. She poured in the one that simply read ‘rose’ and slunk into the scalding water. 

Annie could have fallen asleep right there, enshrouded in the warm water and cradled by the heat of the tub. She dunked herself under and stayed there, letting it wrap around her over and over until she needed a breath. It was tempting. The warmth of the bath, the extended moments of privacy, the lock on the door, all called to her an enchanting song that coaxed her hand from down her sternum, to her belly, to the bundle of nerves at her core, when someone knocked.

“How about some company, honey,” a sugar sweet voice rang out from behind the door. A woman paid by the hotel to accompany the weary travelers who stumbled in. It wasn’t for her. 

Even with the embarrassment creeping up her chest, Annie still managed to stay in the bath until long after the water went cold. It had been months since a proper bath, and she didn’t want to leave. When she left the bathroom, she checked three times to make sure no one was on the landing or coming up the stairs before making her way into her room in her towel. The bed took up most of the small room and Annie shed her towel and sank far into the covers with no regard for sleeping clothes or anyone walking in. 

Her dreams that night were of her, naked, surrounded by darkness, a nameless figure with a blonde patch of hair buried between her legs. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one's a little bit shorter, I wrote myself into a hole and just wanted to keep the ball rolling by publishing this. The next one should be longer. And I got Plans :).


	3. The Heirophant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That dream did Annie no favors. Ezra has a debt to collect in Blackwater.

Annie arose in the large, plush bed convinced she had dreamt the night before, but her hair was still wet. Her skin still smelled of the rosewater she bathed in the night before. It was the first bit of luxury she ever had in her life. The dream sat in her mind, bouncing like an echo or an old memory trying to stay relevant. The figure was faceless, nameless, unknown, but the blonde patch and her mind said otherwise. It felt improper. It felt wrong. She wouldn’t deny that it made her blush.

She brushed her hair out and placed it in braids before leaving her room. Ezra was waiting for her in the sitting area by the front desk. As she descended the stairs, she noticed a small look on Ezra’s face, one she couldn’t read. His eyes widened, the corners of his mouth turned up ever so slightly. He was so involved in his own thoughts that he scrambled to stand up as Annie reached the bottom of the stairs.

“You look, um. You look good. I am assuming the rest served you a world of purpose.” He was bouncing from foot to foot, clearly eager about something. “Are we ready? I have a bit of a revelation for you waiting a little away.” 

Ezra rode the two of them about a mile outside of Strawberry before slowing down near a clearing by the Owanjila Dam. Hitched onto a tree was a beautiful Appaloosa with a grey-spotted coat. The mare was nibbling at a small branch as they approached. The horse was already saddled, its mane and tail clean and shining. Something about her felt off. 

“You stole her.”

Ezra didn’t even hesitate as he walked over to the mare. “I did steal her.” 

“I am trying to start my life anew. I don’t get there by stealing a horse.”

“Well, in the eyes of the law, I am the one that stole the horse, so please consider this new chapter of your life further untainted.” 

Annie remained by Ezra’s horse. The more she thought about the situation, the further her blood began to boil. They were both wanted, both on the run, and he chose to steal a horse? When did he steal it? Where did he steal it from? Did he make a trip back to Valentine while she slept? His bounty might be full of petty crimes that he could serve time for a leave, for her getting caught guaranteed a rope. It felt like a betrayal.

“Where did you get that horse?” Annie stormed up to him in a fit of confidence the likes of which she had never felt. She stared him in the eye, daring him to tell her Valentine so that she could ride off with his horse, leave his roundabout way of speaking, his smirk, his stupid blonde patch in the mud that caked their shoes. 

“That is not of import.”

“It is to me.” 

“Is that roses I smell on you? I find it befitting-”

“Do not change the subject.”

Ezra sighed. The horse was stolen, but he didn’t take it from the Valentine stables, and he wasn’t the one to steal it. He explained to her that his purpose in Strawberry was selling information on stagecoach itineraries to postal workers, who would sell the information to outlaws interested, and then give Ezra a cut of whatever they took. According to one of the outlaws, his partner had taken a liking to one of the horses on the coach, and Ezra chose to take the outlaw’s old horse in lieu of cash. Her name was Lucille. 

“Look little - little lady. Next time I would greatly appreciate a ‘thank you’ before you try and rip out my throat over a kind and honest gesture.” 

“I will thank you when we reach Armadillo.”

Ezra scoffed. “This is an exciting side of you I have not seen before. Perhaps staying at the hotel was a bad idea.”

This time Annie did smack the hat off of Ezra’s head. Before he had time to respond, she hopped on Lucille, and began to ride back in the direction of Strawberry. She rode slowly to allow him to catch up. His hat was still off and hung on the horn of his saddle when he pulled up beside her, hair sticking out in various places, some pieces waving over his forehead. Annie couldn’t help but think the look was kind of charming. He had shaved during their stay in Strawberry, the stubble gone from his cheeks, leaving only his mustache. It made the symmetrical bald patches on either side of his chin less noticeable. 

Ezra had them follow a path along the Upper Montana River instead of riding on the main roads. He felt it would be too risky, saying that the stagecoach robbery he helped organize was executed a little too close to Strawberry for his liking. The sun warmed her face as they journeyed on. When the land necessitated it, they crossed the river and settled on the roads the rest of the way to Blackwater. The surrounding area resembled what Annie saw in her dream all that time ago: a mixture of desert and wheat fields, so different from what she was used to in Valentine. 

Blackwater was the most advanced town Annie had seen yet. Most of the roads were worn down dirt paths like Valentine and Strawberry, except for the one that ran through the middle of town, which was cobbled with light stones and lined with poles with wires Annie had never seen before. Ezra directed them to the saloon on the corner of Main Street. 

“I might be a minute. If you hear screaming or hollering or otherwise concerning noises, pay it no mind.” Ezra tipped his hat at Annie and sauntered into the saloon.

The clientele clashed with the decor of Blackwater’s only saloon. While the decor suggested something along for a higher class, everyone from the local drunk to the actual high class businessman filled the place, surrounding the bar and card tables. Annie sat on a couch opposite the bar, opting to fold her hands in her lap and simply wait for Ezra to finish his business. She wasn’t even sure if she would be able to hear any “concerning noises,” as customers slowly began to file in as the afternoon went on, and a man began to play the piano. 

An hour since they first entered the saloon, and Ezra was nowhere to be seen. She knew he had disappeared up the stairs, but hadn’t heard anything since. No one had paid her any mind as she continued to sit patiently on the couch, not ordering anything or acknowledging anyone. Her goal was to keep her head down in any way she could. 

Annie’s head shot up and over to the stairs when she heard a  _ thud  _ echo through the saloon. At the bottom was a well dressed man, badly bruised and crawling towards the exit. At the top was Ezra; a small smirk of amusement etched on his face, similar to the one he was wearing when he and Annie first met. His pistol was out and in his hand, but at his side and remained there as he slowly waltzed down the steps. The entire saloon had silenced over the spectacle, the creaking stairs the only sound to be heard. Annie felt stuck on the couch. It was like she was a slave to the sight of a form of Ezra she had never seen before. 

“Mr. Martin, I was under the humble impression that we had a deal. And I intend to honor it.” 

Mr. Martin continued to crawl backwards to the door to no avail as Ezra reached him in an instant. Annie could almost see the sweat beading on his forehead. Even his mother wouldn’t have been able to recognize him: both eyes were nearly swollen shut, his nose broken, an ugly bruise grew above a large welt across his jaw. Annie glanced over to Ezra and saw that his right hand was in no better shape than Martin’s face. No one moved a muscle as Ezra crouched over him. 

“The next time our paths cross, you will pay what you owe me or I will put a bullet in your head and sell your corpse to the first buyer to clear your debt, are we at yet another agreement, Mr. Martin?”

“I-I-I gave you all I have.” 

“And it is not enough,” Ezra cooed. He cocked his arm back and Mr. Martin flinched. “You have reached the end of my patience. I am giving you another month before you learn that, unlike you, I am a man that makes good on my word.” 

Ezra stood up and holstered his pistol, leaving Martin on the floor, his eyes never leaving Ezra’s back. Annie didn’t realize that she hadn’t broken eye contact with Martin until Ezra cleared his throat beside her.

“Birdie,” he said, holding out his hand. Annie didn’t take it. Instead, she stormed out of the Blackwater Saloon and rode off in a general direction that she hoped led out of the town. Blackwater’s one cobbled road sounded off in her ears as the sound of Ezra coming up behind her grew closer. By the time she decided to slow down and give him the chance to fully catch up, the sun had started to slip under the horizon.

“There is a clearing a few more miles from here, by the lake. If you slowed up, I’ll be more than happy to lead us to it.” 

Annie relented, slowing Lucille to a trot so that Ezra could pass her. The anger inside her continued to boil as he guided them to the clearing and began to set up camp.

“You could have killed him!”

“If I wanted him dead, he would already be in the ground, I can assure you that.”

“There was no need to make a scene. Someone could have gotten the law. They could be coming after us right now.”

“The people of Blackwater know better than to come between a man and his debts.”

It infuriated Annie how Ezra kept his cool. Never raising his voice, never so much as a sign that he was as angry with her as she was with him. If he was, it was the one thing he kept to himself. Not that she couldn’t have secrets of her own. She still wasn’t sure if Ezra actually believed her about her husband, even with the bounty poster in his hands. And still had the… dream from Strawberry. An inkling she kept held to her heart, one she had mulled on over and over as the time passed. She knew it was getting to her, dwelling. Annie could feel it in how her eyes lingered on Ezra too long, how when she wasn’t thinking about Armadillo or her husband, or merely surviving, her thoughts were on him.

How her heart annoyingly skipped whenever he called her ‘little bird.’ 

These thoughts, this way of thinking, emerged after Strawberry and took hold of her in ways she couldn’t help but cling to. What kind of man was he, outside of this life? Had he helped someone like he was helping her before? How did he like his coffee? What would he be like as a father? Thoughts that never crossed her mind with her husband.

Maybe, at some point, Annie did love her husband. Some time when he was still courting her, making sure he went a little overboard. Too many flowers, staying out a little too late. Overly grand gestures that weren’t red flags then, and even now Annie struggled to see them. To properly recall just when the levee broke. By comparison Ezra’s gestures, if they were such, were subtle, quiet, the direct opposite of the boisterous personality he put on. Never rushing her, never raising his voice, holding out his hand to help her stand up or get off her horse, a hand she never took but he always offered. Even with what he did in Blackwater, she sought to find the spark of cruelty she saw in her husband and came home empty. It plagued her: were these the gestures of a man who had interest in her the way she might have interest in him? Or just the gestures of a man with a soul. 

Annie emerged from her tent to prepare dinner when something in the lake caught her eye. A figure with their back turned, far enough out that the water reached their waist. It was Ezra, bathing. On first instinct, Annie wanted to turn her eyes, or run back to her tent. Instead, she kept watching, too caught up in what she was seeing to give in. 

He was beautiful. 

The moonlight bounced off of his tan skin in a way Annie was sure would be blinding had she been closer. Even from the distance, she could see some of the scars that laced his back from prior exploits. She watched as the muscles in his back danced as he stretched to massage an ache, or rub the water through his hair. He turned around and she ducked back inside, hoping he didn’t catch her. Annie paused before peeking again. Ezra’s front was facing her, droplets of water running down from his hair to his neck, his collarbone, down the trail of his sternum and over the small crest of his belly until it came to rest at the small patch of hair under his navel that she could tell continued under the water. She could barely make out how his face grimaced when his hurt hand made contact with the water. Her cheeks flared so warm she was convinced they would actually catch aflame. 

Ezra grew closer to the shore and Annie scrambled to get the stew started. It wasn’t much, but she figured it might be a little more filling than eating what little was left of the venison Ezra caught. He made his way over to the fire, white linen shirt hanging loosely and unbuttoned on his shoulders. He dug around in his satchel and pulled out clean gauze. Annie watched as he struggled to wrap it around his hand on his own. 

His deep eyes shone with concentration, illuminated by the fire light, and she caught herself taking too-long glances every other minute as she tended to their meal. When he finished, he cleared his throat, a move Annie found out of character for him.

“Might I request your help in buttoning my shirt, little bird?” He held up his bandaged hand as though she may have forgotten. “I myself am not much of a fan of this manner of dress. It feels… far too vulnerable for a man of my persuasion.” The look on his face told Annie that it was the truth. There was a certain discomfort in the way his lips tightened in a straight line, a tenseness in his shoulders over the knowledge of his exposure. 

“I told you not to call me that,” Annie said, standing up, trying to hide the smirk that betrayed her statement. Ezra rose to greet her. He held his arms out about a foot away from his torso, as if to say  _ ‘I’m not going to touch you.’  _

“You’re right. My apologies.” She started to work her way up his shirt. The way they were standing allowed the fire to wrap around his skin, giving it the appearance of an indelible warmth. It took everything in Annie not to look down and watch as his belly rose out and in with each steady breath, or remark on how she couldn’t see his hip bones make delicate peaks below his skin in the lake. She found it hard to deny herself a peek at the same dusting of hair that disappeared under the waistband of his pants. Who was this woman she had become?

“Why do you call me that?” Her knuckle accidentally brushed against his skin as she fastened a button in the middle of his torso, and a string of electricity shot through her hand. The feeling was equal parts guilt and relief. When she looked up at him to gauge a reaction at the contact, she saw that he was looking straight ahead, focused on the horizon behind them. 

“What? ‘Little bird?’” Annie nodded and Ezra opened his mouth as though to answer, then paused. He didn’t respond until she had finished buttoning his shirt.

“It’s because you call to mind a hummingbird, always flitting around, always moving. But why would that matter if you do not want me calling you such?”

“Just a curiosity.” The fact that the first time he called her ‘little bird’ was when she was frozen in place in Valentine was not lost to her. “We’re running low on meat as well.” 

Ezra settled back onto his bedroll with a small grunt. “Then it is good fortune for us that the only thing Mr. Martin could provide was a map with prime hunting locations. You need to learn how to shoot, anyway. I don’t doubt the MacFarlanes would find it suspicious if a woman who is interested in falling under their employ did not know her way around a gun. And not just pointing a shotgun.” He winked at her. 

Annie’s sleep was plagued by dreams and nightmares that choked her. In the beginning, she found herself in Ezra’s embrace, forehead pressed against hers and rocking them slowly back and forth to a song that wasn’t playing. A feeling of weightlessness washed over her, and her chest swelled to the point where she thought it might burst. It was calm, serene, like her mind was telling her that it was her destiny to be in his arms, that they were made for her, when her husband appeared, angrier than she had ever seen him. Redder with rage than he had ever been. He pulled her down from the sky by her ankle and sent her crashing down to the soil beneath them. He didn’t lay a hand on her except for that, but he screamed and screamed until his voice was hoarse, and Annie couldn’t find a way to wake up. 

The sun had barely risen when Ezra decided to wake her by poking his hand into her tent and waving around a bowl of the leftover stew. There hadn’t even been enough time for sleep to have crusted over her eyes, or for her mind to shake the feeling that her husband had broken through her dreams and was waiting for her on the other side of the canvas tent. She chose to eat her leftovers in silence, away from Ezra, hoping to quell the floating feeling in her chest and the ghost of her husband’s ire. Ezra had already packed up the rest of the camp and urged her to hurry before the sun rose.

“Deer like to feed in the early morning. If we find them before the sun is risen, they will be less likely to see us.” 

Annie followed Ezra on horseback as he pored over the map, trying to decide which marked area would give them the best opportunity. He settled on a spot in the middle of the Great Plains, near a small settlement called Manzanita Post. Half of Annie’s sight was filled with rolling fields, the flaxen grains already reflecting the dawn to the point of blindness, the other with dense forest that filtered out what little sun was to be had. 

“Before we get started, we should teach you just how to shoot. If you had pulled the trigger back in Valentine, you would have positively obliterated your right arm.” 

Ezra pulled the rifle from the horse’s saddle and modeled at Annie on how to hold it. “You want the butt to rest in this part here,” he motioned underneath his own shoulder, “so that you don’t hurt yourself from the recoil.” When he passed the rifle off to her, she simply held it in her hands, not confused, but hesitant. 

“Everything all right?” To Annie, holding the gun felt wrong. Thinking about settling it into the meat of her shoulder and pulling the trigger with no threat sat awkwardly inside her. A deer wasn’t her husband, or a lawman, or the only thing that stood between her and freedom. This felt more cold, more calculating than what happened back at her home. She shook off the question.

“I would do it, but as we both well know my trigger finger is somewhat out of commission for the time being.” Annie nodded and hiked the rifle into what she believed was the correct position. She looked over to Ezra for approval. He eyed her stance over once, twice, before approaching her and asking permission to touch her. She nodded once more. 

Ezra pushed himself flush against Annie, his chest to her back, arms against arms, as he molded his body to hers to better assist her. It was the most physical contact Annie had in months. Her heart was beating so fast she was sure there was no way Ezra couldn’t feel it through her back. Ezra placed his right hand on her right arm to help adjust the positioning. The gauze did nothing to alleviate the sheer heat that came off of his skin. A burning sensation that overcame every inch of her flesh as the fingers of his left hand danced around her wrist to straighten it. His instruction fell upon an unfocused mind as the blood in her veins pulsed so loudly it was all she could hear. The sturdiness of his body all she could think about.  _ If she turned her head slightly, she could kiss him, _ was the first thought she had once the shock wore off.  _ He could bury his curved nose into the crook of her neck and inhale her scent, nibble her earlobe, tease her until she begged. _

Annie yelped as Ezra tapped his foot between her ankles, shocking both of them to the point of separation. Her daydream had sent her whirling, mind too hazy at that point to even want to hunt, to do anything more than to take him in the middle of the forest. It was a miracle she hadn’t dropped the rifle. Ezra looked at her, concern flashing across his face.

“I’m sorry, birdie, was it me? If you aren’t ready I am sure I can figure something out.” 

“No, no, I just… lost focus.”

Ezra had her reposition the rifle, this time keeping his distance as he adjusted her stance and the way she held the gun. If he felt that touching her was a necessity, he would ask, and touch her like she was a porcelain doll one wrong move from cracking. By the time Ezra was finished, the gun felt comfortable in her hands, like it was an extension of herself. He suggested first firing into a tree, to test her aim. 

“You need to keep your breath steady. When you go to fire, hold your breath, and exhale when you pull the trigger.” 

Annie did as he said, and the bullet swiftly pierced through the thin tree’s trunk. She turned to him and saw his hands raised in the air in celebration. He insisted on her taking a few more shots “to turn her misplaced pride into assured confidence.” When Ezra thought she was ready, he hitched Lucille onto a tree, opting to take his horse with them instead. 

They ventured into the wooded area, Ezra’s eyes scanning the ground for tracks or other hints of recent activity among the forest floor. He kept his arm outstretched in front of Annie to encourage her to tread slowly and quietly. Annie couldn’t hear a sound, no twigs snapping or birds singing, as though the forest’s density stole all signs of life in its wake. Ezra gasped quietly.

“It’s shit.” He pointed out the dung on the ground and continued to move in the direction he thought best. His feet moved more quickly as he found more signs more frequently: a tuft of fur on a tree, a group of broken twigs, actual hoof prints. Almost by instinct, Ezra grabbed on Annie’s shoulder to stop her as he caught sight of a deer grazing about a hundred yards away. It was a buck, and far larger than Annie could have ever imagined. Its antlers were magnificent, large and complex, almost hypnotizing as she continued to stare. Ezra coaxed her to crouch. It made them smaller and reduced the risk of the buck potentially seeing them and running off. 

“You need to make sure your aim is perfect, do you understand, little bird?” Annie nodded, too deep in concentration to correct him, focusing too hard on making sure her heart rate didn’t spike too hard from the name. She adjusted herself once, twice, three times until the rifle practically melted into her. The buck paused from grazing and looked up, and Annie took her shot. The recoil ricocheted through her body and almost blew her clean off her feet. When she gathered her bearings, the buck was on the ground. This time she raised her hands in celebration, an ecstasy coursing through her that she couldn’t compare. Ezra wrapped his arms around Annie’s waist and spun her.

“That was phenomenal, birdie! Annie Oakley only wishes she were as skilled with a rifle as my bird.”

Ezra, stunned at what he let slip, immediately placed Annie down and made his way over to the buck. Annie joined him and eyed her work. The shot was clean, right through its head. She felt a surge of relief at the thought. Ezra began to talk about breaking it down, keeping the meat, selling what they couldn’t use themselves. He told her he would teach her how to do it all when they returned to their camp. His cheeks, when he looked back up at her, were red. Annie helped him tie the buck onto his horse and they rode back to camp. 

His silence worried her. It grew louder the closer they got. He didn’t look back at her, didn’t say a word as she watched the carcass wade with the rhythm of the horse. Ezra seemed to perk up when they made it back. It gave him a reason to talk, something he’d never needed before. Cutting the antlers was gruesome, skinning the buck even more so. By the end of the ordeal, Ezra was back to himself, and Annie had to help him in and out of his shirt, which was covered in blood.

Ezra looked over the map, tracing their path to the nearest settlement “We can sell the pelt and antlers at the butcher in, uh. Oh.” 

“What’s wrong?”

“Not a thing. The closest butcher is technically Armadillo, unless you would like to sojourn back to Blackwater.” 

“I can sell them in Blackwater as long as you stay put.”

Ezra laughed, his smile widening at the sentence. It was infectious and Annie felt the corners of her mouth tick upward. She had never felt this before. A smile to pair with a smile, a want deep in her belly. 

“Fair deal, birdie,” he answered. Ezra looked at her with the anticipation that she would chastise him once more for using the pet name, but it never came, and he smiled again.

It was resolved, she thought. In the morning, before she made her way back to Blackwater, she would let Ezra know how she felt. If he didn’t feel the same, he had the time to leave to keep whatever bond she might break somewhat intact. If he did? The thought scared and thrilled her at the same time. It would be a first. To feel something as intensely as what smoldered inside her be matched and mirrored. The subliminal kind of fear that comes with being known and loved. She craved it, let the thought of it fill her with joy and mix with the confidence she felt as she ate the venison she hunted herself. She wished Ezra a good night, hoping that he heard something in her voice that would tell him that tomorrow would be different. 

Annie wasn’t even able to fully settle into her slumber before she awoke with a gun pointed in her face. A man she didn’t recognize stood behind it, hair cropped short and slicked back with pomade, beard well trimmed, his smile gleaming in the low light. In another life, in a different situation, he would be handsome. 

“Mrs. Annie Grey, if you come with me quietly, I won’t kill you.”

She couldn’t find it within herself to cry, or even react. The shock, the resolution, an ember that had gone untended for so long she was sure it had been extinguished. As she exited her tent, she looked over to where Ezra slept, anticipating that she would find him with a bullet in his head. Instead he lay there, still asleep, though a second bounty hunter had a gun pointed at him as collateral, to ensure her silence. The one who had intruded in her tent saved her the humiliation of hogtying her. He waited until she had mounted his horse before tying her hands behind her back, and securing the other end of the rope to his horse’s saddle. 

Even as the three of them rode off, Ezra didn’t wake, and Annie didn’t scream. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you’d prefer to read on tumblr: https://aurelacs.tumblr.com/post/619287820243255297/


	4. The Hanged Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Annie bides her time in Strawberry after she was captured by bounty hunters.

West Elizabeth was far more frightening at night. 

The way the moonlight bore through the trees cast long, ominous shadows along the worn path the two bounty hunters chose to take. Annie was tempted to talk, to ask the man where he was taking her, but she didn’t want to push her luck. The dignity he provided her by letting her ride with him was more than likely the only kindness he would afford. So she rode in silence. The sound of the horses hooves beating against the soil the only sound that late at night. It crushed her spine with the weight of the implication and dried up her throat. This was her death march, paraded through the state so far into the evening there would be no one to mourn her, to ask for her final statement, or write down her last words. The bounty hunters, referring to each other only as ‘Morgan’ and ‘Smith,’ talked idly, like she wasn’t there. 

About halfway through the ride, Annie began to recognize her surroundings a little more. Panic began to set in. Even as she was being tied up, the concept of imprisonment and death was so foreign it did little to scare her. To be so close, to have the knowledge that it was, in fact, guaranteed, made her bottom lip tremble. In that moment Annie realized that she didn’t want to die. It wasn’t because of Ezra. Without him, she could live, and she knew that, but she wanted to feel his lips on hers. She wanted to make it to the end of her life fully experiencing what it was like to not have to look over her shoulder. It had been so long that she forgot the feeling. She wanted to reach Armadillo and feel the sand crunch under her boots. She needed to breathe long enough to forget her husband’s face, to make it to the point in her life where she could call him her late husband.

Her heart sank, low, further than the pit of her stomach, as they rode under the ‘Strawberry’ sign. She thought the river that ran through the town looked better in the moonlight. The sheriff’s office was located next to the hill that housed the hotel. The dark wood of the building blended in with the hill and made it look like the office and jail was built into the soil. It gave the building a foreboding presence, as though the hill and the office and the hotel were a solitary castle looming over her. 

The porch light next to the door was the only light on across the whole town as the two men hitched their horses. Morgan grumbled a faint apology as he hoisted Annie over his shoulder to help her down off his horse. The three of them all stood by the door. Morgan knocked, hammering on the door until the sheriff hollered at them for waking him up. The transaction was nearly wordless. Morgan handed the sheriff Annie’s bounty poster, who then directed Morgan to lead Annie to the cell across from his desk before handing the men their bounty payment. 

“D’you know anything about a bounty for the man she was with? Blonde patch of hair, looks like an outlaw,” Morgan asked.  
“Nothing here, but you can always try Valentine. If you’re heading that way, can you let Sheriff Molloy know I got her here?”

Morgan grunted in response and left. 

“Valentine is full up, so you’re gonna be with us for the time being. Sheriff up there’s supposed to come talk to you at some point, but he likes to take his time and who knows if those boys will actually let Curtis know you’re here.”

“What good will talking to me do?”

The sheriff shrugged before lumbering back to his cot and falling asleep. 

Days and nights passed in near silence. Sheriff Farley, as Annie came to observe, wasn’t much of a talker. He snored, loud enough to occasionally shake the floorboards of the office. She learned that Strawberry’s jail had five cells, one upstairs where she was, and four more downstairs, out of sight. Annie overheard Farley one night, as he conversed with the mayor, mention that the downstairs cells were for the more ‘worrisome’ offenders. The statement gave her a spark of hope. She knew it wasn’t often that bounties were put out on women. Maybe he could read between the lines of a woman killing her husband. Or perhaps he merely saw her as less of a threat because she was a woman. Either way, Annie still felt mildly appreciative. If she craned her head hard enough, she could look outside and see wagons passing through the town. The same position gave her the opportunity to feel the sun on her face right before dusk. Her situation was already hard enough, she was grateful to not have to experience it with the ones she heard screaming below her. 

A week into her stay, or what she believed to be a week, Annie gave up all hope in Ezra coming for her. It was a child’s fantasy, to think that he would risk his life and freedom just to save her. She couldn’t find it in herself to blame him, either, even though when she asked herself if she would have come to save him, her answer was a resounding ‘yes.’ What a fool she was to have waited. If she told him, then and there, as he waded out of the lake, how she felt about him, he might’ve been here. Or he would’ve left her. Either way her chest would have been stinging a little less. 

More time passed with no word from Farley on the whereabouts of Valentine’s sheriff, or her life. As a nervous habit, Annie would undo and redo her braids constantly until her fingers ached. She paced around her cell. There was no clock in the office, so she measured the time by the sheriff’s actions. Everyday he followed the same routine: breakfast at the butcher’s stall, sit in his office and read the newspaper, smoke his pipe, taunt the downstairs prisoners, if the sun had yet to go down when he was finished, he would invite the mayor for a drink, where the mayor would talk about his grandiose plans for the sleepy, yet beautiful, town. His talk reminded her of Ezra: weaving tales of splendor, swearing up and down that Strawberry’s beauty could not be contained. The mayor echoed Ezra’s sentiments, convinced that the work he was putting into it would make a difference. Annie was sure that Farley was going to kill Mayor Timmins because he no longer wanted bounties to be advertised in Strawberry. It figured that she would be the last, she thought. 

One morning, maybe three weeks since the bounty hunters had found her, sheriff Farley woke her by knocking on the bars of her cell. A man stood next to him, a handlebar mustache doing nothing to contain the permanent scowl on his face. Farley introduced him as sheriff Molloy, the one from Valentine and Annie’s blood ran cold. The one who would decide her fate stood there, looking unimpressed at the supposed cold-blooded killer before him, half-asleep and half paralyzed from fear. 

“I hope you didn’t pay those boys the full bounty for this,” he gestured over at her, looking sullen and beaten. 

“They didn’t seem to be the most innocent of sorts either. Didn’t wanna cause a fuss.”

Molloy laughed. Farley grabbed his pipe from his desk and made his way outside to give the two some privacy. He stood there silently with his arms crossed for what felt like an hour before speaking. 

“Why’d you do it?”

“That’s it?” He nodded. Annie was confused. Weeks of waiting and that’s all he asks? No hint of a greeting, an apology. She was hoping that maybe the sheriff would tell her how her husband’s family was doing. They would probably be in the front row the day she hangs, but in an odd way her life had felt so sheltered in the months since she killed him that hearing something was preferred to this. To the brusque ire of a man that she knew had already decided that she was going to die for what she did. 

“He hurt me,” she answered.

Molloy scoffed. “I was hoping for a more interesting answer. Not many lady killers ‘round these parts, but they all have the same reasoning.”

“Maybe because they’re all telling the truth.”

“Maybe they’re all lying to try and gain some sympathy before they get hanged,” he said as he leaned in closer to the bars. The scowl on his face grew deeper. She started to wonder how many other women in her situation had the misfortune of seeing his face right before a hood was placed over their heads. 

“My husband beat me. He would scream at me if there was a speck of dust on the floor when he came home from hunting. Chased me around the house with a knife if he didn’t like the way I sneezed or walked or spoke, when I did. I let him hurt me for over ten years. I had it.” Annie didn’t realize she had started crying until her voice broke. “It’s been months and I still call him my husband. I still love him, but I’d do it again. If you’re gonna hang me for that, then so be it.” 

“I’m going to hang you for killing your husband, Mrs. Gray. I don’t care whether or not you regret it.” 

Hearing her name felt like a whip cracking. She had gone so long without the sound of it that it was foreign in her ears, like the sheriff was addressing a stranger. For so long she referred to herself internally as Annie Cobb that it didn’t register. It was her trying to move on, trying to turn back into the woman she was before she married her husband, but it didn’t have the same spark. Her identity had always been ‘Mrs. Gray,’ her maiden name taken from her too soon, before she could form herself outside of her husband. But Cobb never resonated. Maybe in her next life she’ll have a name that fits her better, like Michaels, or Robinson. Or Bird. 

The dread that churned in her stomach kept her from sleeping more than an hour at a time. It would jolt her awake with the sudden urge to run, and her heart wouldn’t stop racing until her brain finally managed to process that there was nowhere to run. At the third bout, Annie awoke to find Farley fast asleep, his snores once again bouncing off the wooden walls. Night had fallen, deep and heavily, on the town. It mirrored the night she was first brought back to Strawberry; the lantern once again the only thing illuminating the entire town. It was never intentional. Every morning he forgot, Malloy would grumble on for the rest of the day about the waste of oil. This night, this mistake, however, cost him more than a nickel’s worth of lantern oil. 

Someone entered, not with a knock, but with a bang, stirring the sheriff from his slumber so harshly he wasn’t able to collect his bearings in time to demand an explanation. The glow of the lantern backlit the visitor and made it impossible for Annie to make him out until he spoke, and even then it was only a hunch. Sheriff Farley stumbled over towards the voice, eyes still crusted with sleep and legs uneasy. He managed his way over to his desk, propping himself up with an arm before asking who had the nerve to bother him so late at night. The man closed the door gently, opposite to his grand entrance. Out of the porch lantern light, the office was enshrouded in darkness until the sheriff lit another lantern at the corner of his desk. It wasn’t until the light illuminated the rest of the office that Annie realized. 

“I do apologize for intruding so late into the evening, but I saw the lantern still on, and where I come from that means a gentleman is open for business.” 

Ezra looked different from when she last saw him. He looked a little more ragged and worn down. The bags under his eyes had grown darker. His hair was unkempt and she didn’t see his hat anywhere on him. The blonde patch of hair caught the light just right. Ezra made no attempt to speak to Annie; he didn’t even look her way as he adjusted the heavy-looking satchel that hung upon his shoulder. His kept his deep, brown eyes focused entirely on the sheriff. 

“I recently purchased myself a new abode in this beautiful little town here and my father always told me to start a new journey with alcohol. And who better among the locale to embark on that sojourn with than the sheriff himself?” Ezra reached into the satchel and forcefully placed two bottles of Kentucky bourbon on the sheriff’s desk. He pulled up a chair, not waiting for permission or refusal and sat down, eagerly awaiting his next move. Sheriff Farley eyed Ezra curiously. Nevertheless, he walked over to the cabinet by his cot and dug out two glasses. He smiled up at the sheriff. Not once did the two men take their eyes off one another. 

“Do you have any idea what time it is?”

“When I said ‘recently,’ it was not an exaggeration.” He leaned back in the chair. Ezra’s body language gave off a kind of confidence she had only seen from him once before: in Blackwater, towering over his debtor. Annie grew worried that he might try the same stunt again. 

“I have always heard the people of Strawberry are of a hospitable color. At least, that is what they say in Saint Denis. It is possible that they simply meant poor,” the sheriff shot him an angered glance, “but hospitality is taught, never bought, wouldn’t you agree, sheriff?” Farley grunted in response. Ezra poured the bourbon halfway into both glasses before drinking his in one go, and encouraging the sheriff to do the same. Sheriff Farley’s eyes shot up to the blonde in Ezra’s hair. The coolness of Ezra’s composure broke for a second, not enough for the sheriff to notice, but enough for Annie to start worrying. She recalled the question the one bounty hunter had asked him when she first arrived and wondered if he made the same connection. 

“Sheriff, please, I insist, drink! There is more than enough for the both of us and I want to make sure your graciousness is equally matched.”

“Is there no way to do this tomorrow,” Farley asked, choosing to match Ezra’s drink.   
“Not according to my father’s superstitions, no,” Ezra chuckled. “It has to be as soon as you sign the deed, and the gentleman I was dealing with for this parcel was quite a character. He absolutely insisted we negotiate until the very last second of the day” He took another swig of the bourbon, this time directly from the bottle. 

“Was it Mr. Rose by chance?”

“The one and the same!” 

Ezra opened the second bottle of bourbon and passed it to the sheriff as he began to tell Ezra stories about the man. Farley eagerly grabbed the bottle by the neck. Engrossed in his tales, he continued to absentmindedly sip on the alcohol, his slowly inebriated mind searching for threads to connect his thoughts. On occasion, Ezra would take a swig from his bottle to encourage him. It was a lengthy plan, but one that seemed to be working. Every time the sheriff tried to stop, Ezra would bring up something else to try and get him talking again. 

‘I have heard that your mayor is a curious one.” 

“He’s trying to run me out of a job, is what he’s tryin’ to do!” He slammed the bottle onto his desk, and Ezra laughed as some of the liquid came sloshing out of the neck and on the sheriff’s hand. Annie’s worry grew again as she peered over to the window and saw daybreak trying to make its way over the horizon. 

“I’m sure the mayor is only doing what he deems best.”

“The mayor is- he’s- the sonuvabitch-” the floorboards shook as the sheriff’s head slammed against his desk, just nearly missing the bottle. Annie wasn’t sure if he was dead or merely sleeping. 

The first time Ezra acknowledged her was as the first snore ripped through Farley’s body. He looked over at her and held a finger up to his lips. As quietly as he could, he toed over to the sheriff’s slumped over body. He gently fiddled with the key ring that hung from his gun belt. Annie could see his hands shaking as he tried every key on Annie’s cell before finally reaching the correct one. She hadn’t realized how long she had been holding her breath until the cell door finally popped open, and the only thing standing between her and Ezra was a couple feet of empty, unfettered air. 

“Missed you, little bird,” he smiled, breaking the heavy silence. 

Tears fell freely from Annie’s eyes, the mix of emotions overwhelming her senses almost to the point of collapse, and she nearly jumped from where she was sat and into Ezra’s arms. Free not only was she of Strawberry jail, but also of any hesitation she might’ve been holding onto with regard to how she felt about him. She buried her face in his neck and took in his scent, something she didn’t realize she missed. His arms gripped onto her something fierce like she would float away and out of his grasp if he didn’t hold on. It was as though the time apart wore away any inhibitions they might have had. The sheer elation of their reunion being the only thing that was on their minds. Ezra came back for her. 

That’s what mattered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only two chapters left! Thank you for reading <3.  
> Read on tumblr: https://aurelacs.tumblr.com/post/617374803043794944/


	5. V. The Lovers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ezra and Annie finally reach Armadillo and finally confront their feelings for each other.. sort of.

Dawn rose as Ezra and Annie sped away from Strawberry, Ezra pushing the limits on how fast his old war horse could go. Annie kept her arms wrapped tight around him. Her cheek pressed so hard into his back she thought she might sink into his spine. They didn’t stop riding until they were surrounded by trees high enough to block out most of the rising sun, close to where Annie killed her first deer. It was there that Ezra had set up camp amongst the craggy, moss covered rocks. Lucille was hitched to a tree that stood next to what Annie could only assume was her tent. When she looked inside, she saw her bedroll and her clothes already laid out, like she had never left. Ezra took notice.

“I wasn’t sure why you were gone for a spell; whether it was because you wanted to leave or someone took you, so I kept your tent up just in case you decided to make your way back. If you had left. Usually bounty hunters aren’t so clandestine in their pursuits, so you can see why I thought you might have just gone.” His words caught in his throat like he wanted to say more, but his body wouldn’t let him.

“Thank you, Ezra. Really.”

He smiled, a shy, contained one where he ducked his head to try and hide the blush that was making its way along his cheeks. As he started the fire, he assured her that it was safe. That he tested the spot they were in three times over to make sure that the smoke of the fire couldn’t be seen over the treetops, and that the light from it couldn’t be seen from the roads. He wanted to make sure she was safe, and she felt it. Annie slept, in peace, undisturbed, until the next morning as Ezra dutifully kept watch.

When Annie left her tent, Ezra was still awake, propped up on a tree with a rifle in his lap. He smiled up at her and greeted her with a  _ good morning _ that dripped with honey. A tin can sat by his side, half full of what looked like brown sludge.

“Coffee’s shit. But it works,” he laughed. He got up from his post and sat himself back down next to Annie as she tried to make a meal with what little provisions Ezra had left. The sleeves of their shirts brushed as Annie worked. She could feel Ezra’s eyes on her, following the curves of her face and settling on her jaw. 

“How long before you realized the hunters took me?” 

“Well, I went to Armadillo to make sure at the very least you were okay, and when I went into the general store, I did not see a woman who barely knows the backend of a shotgun from the front trying to rob anyone.” 

Annie shoved him on his shoulder, hard enough that the momentum sent him tumbling on his side in a fit of laughter. “When are you gonna let me live that down,” she chuckled. 

“I dunno. Maybe when you’ve earned it.” Ezra settled back up and focused his gaze on the small fire. “Maybe when you’ve grown past the skittish thing I first met back in Valentine. Wasn’t even sure if I was looking for the right woman at one point, on account of the fact that you let them take you without a fuss. That’s not the bird I’ve grown to know.”

“I figured they caught me fair and square.”

Ezra raised an eyebrow. “Very much not the bird I know.” 

Annie quietly mulled over her breakfast, not wanting to dignify him with a response despite its resounding truth. She didn’t know why she struggled to tell him why she let them take him, either. The words that came up her throat fell silently from her tongue. She decided to let the matter rest, and watched as Ezra voraciously ate his way through their meal. A pang of guilt rang through her as she assumed the possibility that he hadn’t properly eaten since she was taken. 

“The MacFarlane Ranch lies before Armadillo,” Ezra said, mouth full of beans, “but we will have to stop in town first before getting you hired there.”

“And why’s that?”

“I have a friend that can procure you some papers to keep the hunters off your trail. It’ll also probably take us the rest of the day to get there so it’ll give us the chance to rest up some more.”

He urged Annie to finish eating so they could travel the roads without the burden of the growing desert sun, or possibly running into more bounty hunters or lawmen. They walked their horses through the dense forest until reaching a main road, the sun still trying to rise. The scenery still entranced Annie; how the biome seemed to change with each mile. She watched as the forest turned into rolling fields of wheat along the Great Plains. As they crossed a river, Ezra leaned back towards her.

“Welcome to New Austin, little bird.”

Riding further, the green that was supplied by the nearby river faded into the sandy desert Annie saw in her dreams. Armadillo was still a way off, but seeing it, hearing the sound of her horse’s steps change, filled her with a sense of peace. The sun had barely risen and already the heat bore down on them. Annie felt the temptation of just removing the work shirt she had on and letting the sun and everyone else see her nearly naked except for a sheer undershirt. She strained to see if Ezra felt any effect of the desert heat. When she looked up, she saw that he had removed his light overcoat, and was wearing just a cotton shirt, a couple buttons undone and the sleeves rolled up to his elbows to display his tanned skin. Annie felt her mouth water for the first time in hours. She felt sweat ripple down her spine and they pressed on. 

  
  


Ezra wasn’t kidding when he had said that the MacFarlane Ranch was like a small town. The two only rode through the main road, but the ranch seemed to stretch on for miles. Immediately on their right was a large, faded house with a red roof that Annie assumed belonged to the family. A little past it was a grouping of small houses that belonged to the workers, and behind those was an area for the horses. Some of the workers nodded at them as they rode past. Ezra assured her they were almost to Armadillo. 

As they rode through the ranch, Ezra slowed to let Annie match his stride, and he began to tell her about the area, detailing the two towns and the areas surrounding it. They made their way down a road carved from a large cliff in an area he said was called “Hennigan’s Stead.” Along the trail were people who chose to make camp, and they all waved or nodded at the couple. The area being so populated worried Annie. He assured her that New Austin was more respectful of “outlaw ways” than West Elizabeth or New Hanover. 

“Most of the patrons of New Austin have bounties of their own, birdie. Our whereabouts are of an unknown variety here.” 

Annie tried to fight back tears as she and Ezra rode under the understated sign that simply read ‘ARMADILLO.’ It felt like a burden off her back, a weight so heavy that as it lifted she thought she might float away. Ezra directed her to the saloon at the very end of the town’s main and only road. She kept close to Ezra as he walked in. The population was less dense and diverse than Blackwater. It seemed to consist of mostly working people, cowboys and ranchers probably from the Ranch. Jaunty, upbeat music played from the piano in the corner and there were a few people dancing in the empty space between the bar and the tables scattered around the room. Ezra ushered them to the bar where he put down five dollars, enough for a stay at the hotel upstairs and drinks. 

“Promise me it won’t end up like last time,” Annie said as he told her the man he was meeting was in the saloon.

Ezra winked at her. “If the gentleman gives me what I require, there’ll be no need for quarrel.” He walked into a back room to the right of the swinging doors 

Annie sat at the bar and downed a shot of whiskey. Even the poor shelter from the faded, wooden building helped cool her down. She took a glance outside to check on her and Ezra’s horses, hitched at the side of the saloon next to a water trough. The events of Ezra’s prior shady dealings had her on edge, and she took another shot to calm her bouncing leg. No one seemed to pay her any mind. As she looked down the bar, she saw the faces of a couple other patrons just like her: tired, overheated, trying to pass the time. It was hard to keep her head down with the bartender routinely coming over to offer her more to drink, or other patrons bumping in to her to get closer to the piano. Every muscle in her body unclenched as Ezra took the seat at the bar next to her. He ordered a shot for himself and slid the presumed papers across the counter over to her.

“You probably won’t need them to get a job down at the ranch, but if hunters ever try and steal you up again, you can whip these out and say ‘I’m not Annie Cobb.’” He took a shot and slammed it down. “And they will have nothing to prove you otherwise. Congratulations, little bird.” 

They let themselves wind down, too exhausted from the heat to consider making their way back to MacFarlane’s. Ezra himself sounded unsure as he suggested it. With the finish line in sight, they chose to relax and use up the money Ezra had put on their tab. Day fell into night and the saloon soon filled up further than Annie thought possible. The music continued to play. Annie couldn’t remember if it had ever stopped.

“Let’s dance,” she said, her gaze fixated on the group of people square dancing in the middle of the floor. 

“I didn’t see you as the dancing type.” 

Annie stood and held out her hand for Ezra to take. She guided him to the makeshift dance floor, finding a rhythm that didn’t match what was being played. He stood by her, laughing at how out of time she was, and at how she ignored that everyone else was following an old square dance. After three shots, she felt it unnecessary to care how she looked, but after enough coaxing from Ezra, she took the time to learn the dance everyone else was doing. It involved swinging each other around the room. The idea excited Annie. When she thought she had enough of a grasp on it, she joined back in, letting the arms of strangers guide her around. It was thrilling. It felt freeing to be swept up in the joy of others. Her smile grew wider as Ezra eventually joined in. 

The music slowed tempo, and this time Ezra offered his hand to Annie. She folded into him, letting his hand settle right above her waist. He pushed their bodies closer together so their chests were touching and began to sway them to the beat. It gave her a chance to let her heart settle from racing, or so she thought. Goosebumps ran down her spine as she felt Ezra begin to rub his thumb up and down her back. They swayed there in silence, let the softness of the moment speak for itself. 

“They were going to hurt you.” Annie said it after a couple minutes. 

“Who?”

“The bounty hunters,” she whispered it low, so those around them couldn’t hear. “They told me to come quietly or they’d have killed you.” 

“I very well could have handled them, birdie.” She couldn’t stop thinking about how good his calloused hand felt in hers, or how the one on her waist seemed to engulf it. 

“With you fast asleep and a gun pointed to your head? I don’t think so.”

Ezra spun her in time with the music before returning her to his arms. “Why would that matter to you? My living or dying? I have spent my life as an outlaw, I might as well have gone out protecting someone. Doing something law-abiding with my time for once.”

“Don’t you get it, Ezra?” The alcohol and heat played tricks on her mind, made her more brave than she thought she needed to be to say anything. “I care about you. Greatly. More than I care to admit.” 

The two of them hadn’t stopped dancing. There was nothing but a distinct silence between them. Embarrassment took over her, and she wanted to hide, run into a random room in the saloon and not leave until morning rose and Ezra was gone. 

“If you don’t feel the same, I’d appreciate it if you would let go of me.” 

Ezra dipped her, one strong hand splayed across her back to keep her balanced, their noses almost touching. “Don’t be ridiculous, little bird. Why do you think I spent almost a month looking for you?” 

The music seemed to grow louder with each spin they made, Ezra holding her a little tighter with each flourish of their steps. Annie buried her face into the crook of his neck. His shoulder absorbed most of the joyous laughter that erupted from her body. She made it to Armadillo. He loved her. The candlelight chandelier shining down upon them felt like a blessing from God. 

“Kiss me.”

“Excuse me, birdie?” Ezra’s smirk could have lit up the whole room. The nickname set her heart ablaze as the whiskey coursed through her. Annie couldn’t stop looking at his lips and the way his top lip arched into a gentle bow. She reached her hand up, tempted to brush her thumb along his bottom lip, but opting to trace the scar that danced across his cheek. The rest of her fingers curved gently under his jaw.

“I said ‘kiss me,’ Ezra.” She stopped their dancing in the middle of the saloon to bring each other in to focus, her hand still on his cheek.

Ezra’s smirk grew into a smile, the glimmer in his eyes reminiscent of the one he had all the way back in Valentine. The low light of the saloon shined around him like a halo and his beauty overwhelmed her. This man who went out on a limb to help her, to save her, to not once mention what she had done. Who wasn’t afraid to say he  _ knew _ her. He made her feel safe for the first time in so long, and she didn’t know what to do with this feeling. It hit her like a bolt of lightning when he smiled and leaned in.

He kissed her. Quick and chaste in front of what felt like the entirety of Armadillo. It happened so fast, it didn’t give her any time to react to it until his lips were already gone, a ghost across her mouth. The delivery, the circumstance, felt so insufficient for what Annie had been anticipating that it almost made her scream. As she opened her mouth to protest, Ezra took her hand from his cheek and guided her past the bar to the stairs. When Annie realized where Ezra was taking her, her hands began to tremble. A nervous ache crept into her stomach. She fought back the urge to yell at him, chastise him for wasting the one opportunity they might have had where she finally felt okay. Their room was at the very end of the landing, and the mix of elation and dread grew with each passing step until finally they had made their way inside and Ezra closed the door. He paused, noting the look on Annie’s face. 

“Are you alright? I hope this is okay. I wanted to afford us some privacy. I think it’s the least you deserve.”

Annie nodded, almost unable to look him in the eyes. 

“Do you still want me to kiss you?” A touch of concern leaked in his voice. Ezra had kept his distance, a couple steps away from where Annie stood with her hands folded in front of her. She looked up at him pleading, almost begging.

“Yes.”

Ezra wasted no time closing the space between them, their bodies molded together as though they were carved from the same stone. He took her hand in his and traced his thumb down her middle finger. He brought the hand to his lips and gave it a soft kiss, the air from his nostrils cascading down her knuckles. He placed the hand on his shoulder. Annie mirrored his action and moved her hands down a little lower so they laid on his chest. She took comfort in the feeling of his breathing. Through her palm, she could feel his heart racing. Ezra cupped her face in his hands and drew her close, their lips so close to touching that the feeling made Annie’s start to itch.

“My bird,” he whispered, before bringing her in for a kiss. 

This kiss lit every one of Annie’s nerves on fire until the pleasure nearly veered into actual pain. It had been so long since she was kissed, since she wanted to be kissed, that she already had to hold back a moan. It felt like taking her first drink of water. To hold him in her hands, to feel his calloused fingers caress her cheeks, to just be kissing him without fear: it overwhelmed her. Made small tears fall from her eyes and collect at the bridge of Ezra’s thumbs. 

Hesitantly, Ezra brushed them away. “Should we stop?”

Annie shook her head ‘no’ and pulled Ezra impossibly closer, running a hand up the back of his head to tangle in his unruly hair. There was a passion behind it that Annie could never remember feeling; an urgency she forgot could ever exist. When Ezra lightly dragged his tongue across her bottom lip, she moaned. A quiet noise that got caught in the back of her throat and made her cheeks flare in their warmth. She ran her hands down his trunk and back up again, stopping at the top button of his shirt.

“I am all yours.” Ezra’s hands moved and settled at her waist to give her room as she undid each of the buttons on his shirt, showing remarkable restraint. His skin was burning hot, slightly flushed from the alcohol and the attention he was receiving. It felt impossible not to stare. Annie felt the urge to stop. She wanted to lay him on the bed and drink him in for a week. Nothing explicit, just tracing her lips down his skin, counting every scar and freckle until the world inevitably ends. She knew he would oblige. Instead she brushed the shirt off of his shoulders and held him close again. She kissed him where his jaw met his neck, relished in the small sigh Ezra let out; peppering kisses all over his face until finally moving back to his lips. Annie mirrored his action and traced her tongue along his bottom lip until it elicited a moan that she felt reverberate in the back of her throat. Her hands moved from one spot on his body to the next, unable to get comfortable with just one soft patch of him. Taking his wrist, not separating from the kiss, Annie pulled Ezra forward, moving herself backwards toward the bed until it came into contact with the back of her knees, and she sat. Eyes level with the waistband of his pants and the growing bulge beneath them. As she went to unbutton them, Ezra stopped her, his hands gingerly removing hers. 

“Let me focus on you, birdie,” he said. He kissed her forehead and told her to move back onto the bed so her head lined up with the headboard. Ezra straddled her waist and leaned in for another kiss, this time more desperate, more urgent than the last. There was more tongue, a sense of neediness that Annie had never sensed from him before. Annie matched his pace, holding onto him as though removing his lips from hers was a death sentence. The room was so far from the commotion downstairs that the only sound in their small room was the chorus of moans they brought forth from one another. She gripped onto his shoulders, digging her nails in hard enough she knew they would leave marks. She could feel the heat growing between her legs. 

Ezra cradled the back of her head with one hand while the other deftly undid the buttons on her shirt. He worked his way up and down her torso, planting open mouth kisses and love bites everywhere he could find. Annie’s back arched as he dragged his teeth down her ribs, and he took the chance to do it over and over until it left her breathless. His hand slid beneath her undershirt, a finger teasing the underside of her right breast as he watched her for permission. All in his hand. He lightly rolled the nipple between his fingers and Annie cried out, far louder that she was intending, and she watched Ezra smirk from between her fluttering lashes. She grew even louder as Ezra’s tongue began to dance around her other nipple, the sensation flooding down to her core. He coaxed off her undershirt, Annie grateful for the cool air that brushed against her heated skin. Ezra continued his way down her body, lighting a fire with each kiss he planted. 

“Is this alright,” he asked, voice gritty with want, and he toyed with the button of her jeans. Annie nodded. He pushed them off of her, making sure his hands came into contact with every bit of her legs as they came down. Replacing his hand with his lips, he kissed his way back up her legs, slowly becoming more rough the closer he got to her apex. Ezra nipped and sucked at Annie’s inner thighs until she begged him to stop from the overstimulation. He responded by kissing his way to her core, ghosting his nose over her lips until her hips bucked, urging him to push forward. 

Ezra ran a thumb down her slit, already wet from his prolonged teasing. His tongue followed a similar path, up and down, avoiding her clit until she reached a point where she was starting to soak the bed beneath her. He wrapped his arms around her thighs, pulled her closer, and dove in. He moaned at the scent of her, nuzzled his nose onto her clit as his tongue sank into her. His hands rested on her hips, adding pressure every time they threatened to buck again. Annie, her eyes tightened shut for the most part, dared to open them and glance at Ezra. She nearly came from the sight. His eyes were darkened by a lust and hunger she had never seen from him before, his nose was shiny from her slick. She reached down to tug at his hair and he moaned against her.

“I thought I would have to bring down heaven itself to taste you,” he said as he came up for air for a moment and kissed her inner thigh. All Annie could do was moan and sink further into the bed. Ezra made his way back down, tracing another finger along her slit, and slowly sliding it between her folds. Annie hummed with pleasure as he began to slowly thrust it inside her. He curved it and slowly massaged the area until he knew he found her spot. It took everything Annie had to not kick him off of her to try and bring herself some relief. He slowly coaxed in another finger, working his tongue on her clit and continuing to fuck her with his fingers. It was like he was purposefully teasing her more, trying to keep her as close to orgasm as possible without actually making her come. Every time she thought she was about to, Ezra would change his pace, or adjust his hand, leaving her unfulfilled and close to exhaustion. Even though night had fallen, the desert remained heated, and Annie’s skin gleamed with sweat. 

“Ezra, please,” she panted. When Ezra looked up at her, she could’ve sworn he looked drunk.

“What’s wrong, birdie?” As he talked, he dragged slow circles around her clit. 

“Please let me come.” 

He huffed against her thigh in disappointment. “If that’s what my bird wants,” he said, his tone taunting and full of need. “How do you want it?”

“What do you mean?” Ezra crawled his way up towards her and kissed her, his tongue dragging along hers, making sure she tasted herself. 

“How do you want to come? I can keep playing with you down here,” he ran his finger between her slit again, “or we can get to the real fun stuff.” Ezra took Annie’s hand in his and guided it to his center where his cock was so hard she thought he might come from the contact alone. He sighed at the small release. It made her dizzy, thinking that she caused this. 

“I want you.” The speed at which she said it almost embarrassed her. 

“Yes, ma’am,” Ezra smiled against her lips. He moved and pressed hot, fevered kisses along her jaw and down her neck. Annie watched in awe as he leaned up to take off his pants and underwear, her eyes trailing down his soft, scarred torso to the lush curls that swept down his navel to the length between his legs. The bed sank as he knelt over her, his body close enough to hers that she could feel the heat radiating from him. 

There was a tension in the air. A hesitation in Ezra’s actions that confused her while he hovered over her, unmoving. 

“What’s wrong?” 

“Are you sure this is alright?” He brushed a strand of hair that had fallen to the middle of her face. The sincerity of his statement shone in the candlelit room, a glint of caution in his eyes that Annie appreciated, but the fire he had lit beneath her made her grow impatient. She dragged her nails down his chest, watching as the goosebumps followed down his skin. She took him in his hand and smeared the small amount of precome around his head. Guiding him to her entrance, Ezra raised his eyebrows, silently telling her he got the hint. He pushed in slowly, carefully, letting her adjust to every part of her. Annie relished in how he stretched her. She couldn’t remember the last time she had had sex. Before she killed her husband, she had been managing to hold him off for a couple months. She hadn’t realized how much she missed it. A moan arose from her throat, a low mewl that encouraged Ezra to proceed. 

She rose her hips up to meet his, legs lazily wrapping around his hips as he began to thrust into her. It was hard for her to contain her moans with him filling her up so perfectly. Ezra leaned his head down so that his mouth was next to her ear. The combination of his own moans and his words of adoration made her mind fuzzy. Calling her things her husband never called her, saying things her husband never said:  _ beautiful, mine, perfect, celestial _ . Ezra cradled the back of her head in one of his hands.

“I have been thinking of this far longer than I’d like to admit,” he whispered, picking up the pace a little. “Been dreaming about you, and your pearlescent smile, and how your hair smells, and the feeling of you around me.” He softly bit on Annie’s shoulder. His voice, praising her, loving her, laced with lust brought her close to orgasm again. Her hips found his rhythm and matched him, causing him to throw his head back. “Fuck. My sweet bird.” 

Ezra leaned back and propped one of Annie’s legs over his shoulder, allowing him to reach deeper. She knew she wouldn’t be able to last long from there as the angle meant that he could hit her spot over and over. Her left hand ran through his hair while the other snakes down between their bodies and began to rub at her clit. The pleasure built as Ezra continued to thrust into her, suck marks into her skin, whisper praise in her ear, until she saw white. 

He brought her lips to his and swallowed her cries of pleasure, his hips stuttering as he followed soon behind. In that moment, the world could have ended and Annie would have laid there in utter contentment. Ezra rolled off of her with a sigh. He wrapped an arm around her and pulled them together so they were face to face. The night had finally cooled, and she was grateful for his warmth.Annie could do was let out a breathless  _ please _ before Ezra took it in his hand, gently kneading it 

Annie’s mouth moved, trying to find the correct syllables to properly convey how she felt. It was bliss. A slice of heaven she never thought she would have. She wanted to tell Ezra she loved him, let the words vibrate in her throat and watch his smile grow again, perhaps have him again, in the reverie they created. The sentiment fell apart, Annie still too breathless to get her point across. It didn’t matter to Ezra, who had been watching her the whole time. He still smiled, and pressed his lips to hers in a kiss softer than she expected. 

“You have a big day tomorrow, little bird. You should get some rest.” Ezra climbed out of the bed to blow out the candles surrounding them. When he returned, he pulled the quilt over them and molded himself to the curves of her body, tucking her head underneath his chin. 

_ Hopefully, I will be long gone by the time you read this.  _

Annie wanted to burn the letter the second she read it. A crushing sadness gave way to a blazing anger that translated in the heavy steps she took as she descended out of the saloon. In the letter was ten dollars, enough for her to buy some provisions and a stagecoach to the ranch if she didn’t feel like making the trip on horseback. She figured the day was early enough, and the distance short enough, that she would be able to make it to the ranch before it got too hot again. Her heart couldn’t help but sink when she approached Lucille and didn’t see Ezra’s horse beside her. She grew mad at herself. What was she expecting? For him to stay with her? She knew he was one of those “once an outlaw, always an outlaw” types. Ones who had been caught up in the lifestyle for so long that getting them to leave would have been impossible. It still stung.

_ At one point, I did consider settling down alongside you, but I decided that the MacFarlane Ranch was not a place best suited for the likes of those like me. I thought it best to leave you, and therefore leave you untethered to the past you are so close to escaping. Also, there are apparently five bounties on my head, and staying with you would only cause more trouble that you don’t deserve.  _

All the trouble he went through to help her. The time spent simply getting her to this point. It almost felt like a waste. Did he think she wouldn’t do the same for him? Surely he could have made his own papers as well. The man in Valentine said the MacFarlane’s were always hiring. Ezra said he wouldn’t have minded dying protecting someone. Doing something “law-abiding.” He could have protected her on the ranch. Somehow. By that point, she would have done anything to keep him close by.

_ I hope, for your sake, our paths don’t cross again. To keep you safe. I know you’ll be fine. You were strong when I met you, and you’re even stronger now.  _

It wasn’t hard to find the right path to the ranch, even if the same stretch of sand went on further than she could have comprehended. There was constant traffic that appeared to be coming and going, especially in the morning. Annie made way for the few carriages that made their way down Hennigan’s Stead, each filled with specific produce from the ranch. Before this, long before she married her husband, she wanted to be a teacher. A small hope in the back of her mind blossomed at the idea that maybe the ranch’s population was vibrant enough to necessitate one. She wanted to push it out, acknowledging that nearly every dream she had didn’t come to fruition. 

She hated to say it. 

She hoped to see Ezra again. 

The ranch was bustling as Annie finally reached it. More wagons traveled down the main road that housed the family home. A group of cowboys rode out towards Stillwater Creek. She jumped down from Lucille and took her lead, trying to find someone in charge. Everyone pointed her over to the horse stables and told her to ask for a man named Amos. 

“Where you from?” The question startled her as a man approached her from behind. 

“Tumbleweed.” It was a larger town way out past Armadillo. Ezra told her it would be the safer choice to say if they asked. He worried that Valentine was too far for anyone to be traveling there for a job. He wanted to keep her safe. 

“What’s your name.”

“Annie.”

He reached out his hand for her to shake and she took it obligingly. He introduced himself as Amos and she immediately told him she was looking for a job. 

“You good with a gun?”

“Yessir.”

Amos eyed her up and down cautiously. She knew she wasn’t exactly dressed the part, but with the money Ezra gave her, and the money she was bound to make from the ranch, she figured she’d be well integrated in no time. “You got a horse already, so that makes my life a little easier. How’s about we start you off with nightly patrols and see how you do from there.”

Annie adjusted the rifle slung on her shoulder. “I’ll take whatever you can give me.” 

They shook hands, and silently agreed on a deal.

_ Good luck, my darling Annie Bird. _


End file.
